Total Liberation Talk

This is the second talk I gave at the International Animal Rights Conference in Luxembourg, on September 14 2013, regarding the need for an alliance politics that transcends the rigid divisions among the animal/human/environmental liberation movements.

Steve I have been following you for years. I believe your belief in Total Liberation is spot on! A friend and I, Brian Stetten are starting a Connect the Dots Beyond Occupy group in Florida and we both are moving to DC soon (the belly of the beast). Brian is an ardent progressive and friends with Chomsk and Parenti. He introduced me to alternative philosophies beyond animal and environmental rights.

He was intrigued with your recent podcasts in Luxemborg and agrees with your philosophy. Brian has a radio show on blog talk radio and he would like to have you on the show. Chomsky, Parenti and Anthony Marrs are among his notable guests. We have begun circulating your talks on Facebook and Brian is networking with his contacts in Marxist, Anarchist groups.

You and Brian have been a guiding force in my life to bring me to the belief of total liberation! Thank you. Could you supply an email address for us to communicate with you? What is the best way to reach you? thank you

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[…] Thirdly, there is the widespread isolation of the animal liberation movement from other movements for radical and progressive social change, whom we need to make alliances with if ever we are to create a decent world for all its inhabitants, both human and non-human alike. This form of isolationism is very eloquently challenged by Dr Steve Best in his excellent Total Liberation talk. […]

Fuck this corrupt, omnicidal, nihilistic, corporate-controlled, fascist world-system; you don’t reform evil, you destroy it. Not a chance in hell to create a culture of life until we destroy the culture of death. Disease has consumed the entire body of civilization. We live among ruins, we inhabit a graveyard, an apocalyptic wasteland strewn with corpses, carrion, and zombies.

We need to focus like a laser beam on a grim truth: whatever the gains of a worldwide environmental and animal rights movements throughout the last four decades, they have nonetheless continued to lose ground in the battle to save biodiversity, to stop or even slow down the destruction of the rainforests, topsoil, coral reefs; to prevent ever-worsening resource wars; to end the blatant and open war and Holocaust against nonhuman animals; and to come to grips with the immanent catastrophe of climate change in our minds let alone our policies and actions.

The sense of urgency is rising in proportion to the severity of the crisis. Increasingly, calls for legislative change, moderation, compromise, and taking the slow march through the institutions can be seen as grotesquely inadequate, as growing numbers of people gravitate toward more radical tactics of change. “Reasonableness” and “moderation” in the current situation seem to be entirely unreasonable and immoderate, as “extreme” and “radical” actions appear simply as necessary and appropriate.

From Athens to Paris to Brazil, there is growing realization that politics as usual just won’t cut it anymore. We will always lose if we play by their rules rather than invent new forms of struggle, new social movements, and new sensibilities. The defense of the earth requires immediate and decisive action: logging roads need to be blocked, driftnets need to be cut, and cages need to be emptied. But these are piecemeal and reactive measures, and in addition to these tactics, radical movements and alliances must be built that unites struggles on behalf of humanity, nonhuman animals, and the earth in a politics of total liberation.

Resistance is the oxygen of the future. Live to resist, resist to live.